Why Gender Matters in Therapy (Especially for Women)

Gender matters to our psychology.

Not as an abstract concept, but as a lived, embodied, daily reality. From before we are even born, each of us are treated differently, spoken to differently, related to differently, depending on what gender we are assigned.

Different parts of us are encouraged, while others are quietly (or not so quietly) discouraged. We learn very early what is expected of us, what is rewarded, what is unsafe, and what must be hidden in order to belong.

In patriarchal societies, boys and girls (then, as we grow, men and women) often have qualitatively different experiences of life. These differences shape our nervous systems, our sense of self, our relationships, and the meaning we make of our lives. They shape how we suffer, and also how we heal.

And all of this matters deeply in therapy.

Gender is lived, not theoretical

Women & men are not simply “people with different genitals”. We are socially conditioned in distinct ways that affect how we relate, how we express emotion, how we take up space, and how we respond to distress.

Many women have been raised to be accommodating, attuned to others, emotionally available, and self-sacrificing. Anger, assertiveness, need, and desire are often subtly (or overtly) discouraged. We often learn to monitor ourselves closely, and to be “good”, “easy”, “nice”, “low maintenance”.

Over time, this conditioning becomes internalised. It shapes our inner critic, our boundaries, our guilt, and our sense of responsibility for other people’s feelings. When therapy ignores this context, women’s distress is often misunderstood or mislabelled as individual pathology rather than an understandable response to relational and cultural pressures.

Living in a female body

Living in a body, and developing a relationship with that body, is a very different experience for women than for men.

Women’s bodies are viewed, evaluated, policed, controlled, medicalised, and commodified in ways that men’s bodies generally are not. From a young age, many women learn to see their bodies from the outside, rather than inhabit them from within. Shame, vigilance, and disconnection are common consequences of this.

This has profound psychological implications: Disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, dissociation, sexual difficulties, chronic self-criticism, and a fractured sense of self do not arise in a vacuum. They emerge within a culture that teaches women their bodies are objects to be judged rather than homes to live in.

A therapy that does not understand this risks individualising & pathologising what is actually a deeply collective experience.

Cycles, transitions, and identity shifts

Women also move through physiological cycles and hormonal transitions that profoundly affect our mental and emotional lives, yet our Western culture largely denies or minimises this reality.

Menses, fertility, infertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause—each of these brings shifts not only in the body, but in identity, energy, cognition, emotion, and meaning. These transitions can open profound psychological material: grief, rage, relief, longing, loss of old selves, emergence of new ones.

Too often, women are taught to override or pathologise these experiences rather than understand them.

Therapy that is blind to cyclical and developmental realities can leave women feeling confused, defective, or unseen—when in fact they are moving through entirely normal, if sometimes also challenging, human transitions.

Motherhood is not gender-neutral

Motherhood is psychologically, emotionally, and physically distinct from fatherhood.

Matrescence—the transition into motherhood—is a major developmental process, yet it is rarely recognised as such. Women experience bodily change, hormonal upheaval, sleep deprivation, identity loss and reconstruction, shifts in relationships, and often invisible physical or emotional trauma.

Alongside this, many mothers carry a disproportionate share of domestic labour, mental load, and emotional labour, often while navigating recovery from labour, negative career impacts and societal expectations to be endlessly grateful, fulfilled, and selfless.

When therapy fails to contextualise maternal distress, women are often left feeling that they are the problem—rather than recognising the impossibility of the conditions they are trying to survive within.

Neurodivergence in women

Neurodivergence often presents differently in women, largely because of gendered socialisation.

Many neurodivergent women learn early to mask—to monitor, adapt, and perform in order to meet social expectations. Their differences are internalised rather than externalised - Their needs go unmet, their overwhelm is hidden, and their distress becomes private.

This often leads to chronic anxiety, burnout, shame, and a profound disconnection from self. Many women are diagnosed late in life, after years of believing there is “something wrong” with them. The grief that can accompany late discovery is real—and so is the relief of finally being understood.

Therapy that does not understand masking, people-pleasing, and internalised distress risks reinforcing the very patterns that cause harm.

When therapy itself causes harm

Many women come to therapy already feeling unseen, over-responsible, and self-blaming. When therapy is rooted in patriarchal assumptions—individualising suffering, prioritising adaptation over agency, ignoring power and context—it can unintentionally deepen these wounds.

I often hear women say things like:“Therapy didn’t work for me.”“I felt misunderstood.”“I left feeling like there was something wrong with me.”

In every case that I have worked directly with, the issue was not that the woman was “too complex” or “resistant.” It was that her reality was not being understood within its social, relational, and embodied context.

There is a stark and important difference between helped to heal... and being taught to tolerate the intolerable.

A different therapeutic approach

A feminist, woman-centred therapeutic approach understands that women’s distress makes sense. It situates suffering within bodies, relationships, histories, and systems of power. It honours complexity rather than flattening it.

This kind of therapy does not ask women to disappear, adapt endlessly, or blame themselves. Instead, it supports reconnection - to our body, needs, anger, grief, desire, and truth.

It creates space for identity transitions, for cycles, for contradiction, for becoming.

If you have ever felt misunderstood, blamed, or subtly silenced in therapy, you are not alone.

And there is another way - I specialise in offering this women's centred therapy, for all of the reasons outlined above.

My areas of special interest include:

• Matrescence & maternal mental health

• Perimenopause and midlife mental health

• Late discovery of neurodivergence

• Emotional cycle-breaking parenting

• And more

I work with women who are mothers, and who are not (whether by choice, or not), I work with women of all neurotypes, and I work with women of all ages, though adulthood.

Whether you have specific goals you'd like to achieve, or specific healing you'd like to do, or whether you have been suddenly blindsided by life and you need a safe, supportive place for all of your emotions to be held - I can support you.

I offer one-off assessment and consultation, therapy, and therapeutic coaching - You can find out more about the services I offer on my website: www.mindbodysoulpsychology.co.uk

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I'm Dr. Jenny Turner, Clinical Psychologist, Mum, a late-in-life-self-identifying AuDHD individual, and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a specialist private psychology service for women.

I can help you at any stage of your life journey - whether you need support to enter adulthood, navigate perimenopause, heal from trauma, finally transform your relationship to your own anxieties, shame, guilt, rage and/or overwhelm - I can support you to enrich your life & relationships.

My services are trauma-informed, non-pathologising, compassion-focussed, neuroaffirmative, and offered through an intersectional feminist lens.

I offer online appointments to women based all over the UK, and I offer in-person appointments in Ripon, North Yorkshire - click here to find out more: www.mindbodysoulpsychology.co.uk

You might also like to follow me on Instagram, @drjennypsychologist , or perhaps you'd like to receive regular doses of solidarity and compassion right into your inbox? If so, you can sign up here to my Substack newsletter for regular moments of solidarity in the challenges of being a woman in this patriarchal world, as well as compassion & inspirations for guilt-free self-care - so we can all stay resourced for the experiences we're navigating.